The existing art for manufacturing certain powder metal plates, including fuel cell plates, is to use a powder comprising 95% Cr and 5% Fe. The powder is compacted in a press to the desired shape. The green compact is sintered in a furnace at 1120 degrees Celsius. The sintered part is then forge/coin (re-strike) in a press to increase the density and then finally re-sintered at 1400 degrees Celsius.
Representative of the art is U.S. Pat. No. 6,436,580 (2002) which discloses a method of manufacturing porous sheet metal sheet comprising metal powders are spread on a feeding belt or a supporting sheet which is continuously fed; the feeding belt or the supporting sheet on which the metal powders have been spread is passed through a sintering oven; and the metal powders are sintered, with adjacent uncompressed metal powders in contact with each other partly and gaps present therebetween. Consequently, contact portions of the metal powders are integrated with each other and the gaps are formed as fine pores.
What is needed is a method of manufacturing powder metal plates comprising feeding a predetermined mass of metal powder onto a moving tape, restricting the metal powder by surrounding the metal powder with vibrating boundary walls extending in the direction of movement of the tape, rolling the metal powder at an ambient temperature to form a green compact strip, continuously sintering the green compact strip on a conveyer in a furnace, forming the green compact strip to a net shape part while in the furnace, and cooling the net shape part in a non-oxidizing environment at a temperature in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius. The present invention meets this need.